Complete Story
07/30/2018
Longtime Lima News sports editor Chuck Dell dies
Chuck Dell, who led the sports department at The Lima News for 28 years in the 1960s through the 1990s, died Sunday. He was 84.
Dell started at the newspaper in 1961 before becoming sports editor in February 1964, a position he held through 1992. He also served as the interim editor at the newspaper from March 1992 through July 1992 and as the community relations and marketing director until he retired July 26, 1996, after 35 years with The Lima News. He spent the beginning of his retirement in a second career as a travel writer.
Services celebrating his life will be held at a later date. Arrangements are through Chiles-Laman Funeral Home, Lima.
Dell guided the sports department through key decades, as local sports became more and more important in society.
“He had an emphasis on high school sports and Ohio State football that is still strong there today,” said Paul Smith, a former Lima News sports editor who began working with Dell in 1969. “That’s what the region needed and should have.”
Dell made a difficult job look easy, said Mike Lackey, a longtime columnist and former city editor at the newspaper, who began his career in the sports department in 1972.
